Always Room for One More

Housekeeping!

  1. Winner of the Arabie: Heather Raine.  Winner of the Arielle Shoshana Saturday and Sunday:  Meggie.  Shoot me your address via Contact Us.  For those who didn’t win– I enter drawings and raffles and contests and whatnot all the time, and I never win.  I literally cannot think of a single time I’ve won a prize.  If you’ve not won anything, here and/or elsewhere, you are not alone!
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I’m wearing these socks with my new boots.

Well, here we are.  The Arielle Shoshana post was supposed to go up today but (derp) I accidentally posted it last week, sooooo… today we’re going to talk about the thing you can’t get enough of.  Let me explain.

Anita and I have been doing our Swedish death-cleaning.  It’s pretty cool, if you haven’t heard of it.  The Swedes have this thing where they go through their stuff and pare down to save their loved ones the work after they’re gone.  I think that’s a dandy idea.  When my dad died, in the house my sister and I had grown up in, it took us more than a year to go through everything, and it suuuuuuuucked.

I’m renting my cozy cottage for another couple of years, while the boys finish high school.  After that I’m hoping to hightail it out of here, not sure where yet.  In the meantime, I’ve been taking boxes and bags of goodies to the thrift.  Some of it the girls left behind.  Some stuff I brought as a security blanket from my former highfalutin’ life and I’ve decided I don’t need it around anymore.  I am hardly a minimalist, as anyone who’s seen my house can attest, but there comes a point, you know?  It feels good to get so much flotsam out of here.

So, I took all this stuff to the thrift and came home with another pair of boots.  They’re shorty cowboy boots in a lovely shade of brown, already broken in perfectly.  I adore boots – cowboy boots, moto boots, riding boots, chunky boots, slouch boots, knee-high boots, Chelsea boots—as long as they’re low-heeled, I want them.  I have three pairs of flats for summer, and for winter I probably have twenty pairs of boots.  (Okay, maybe more, I refuse to count.)

I mentioned this to Anita and she laughed and said the thing she can never have enough of is cashmere socks.  She loves her some cashmere socks.  She’d have a cashmere-sock drawer filled to bursting if she could.

Anyway, we got to wondering.  I already know that perfume folks tend to be collectors – makeup and nail polish are pretty common.  But what else, what single random item, are you always willing to make room for more?  Do the items get used or just admired?  And are you downsizing in any way, and how?

  • Maggiecat says:

    Books for me!  I used the collect a lot of things, mostly antiques.  But when I married my husband, who also Collects Things, it all for to be too much.  We just moved, so we downsized quite a bit, but as we unpack, I can see it wasn’t enough.  It’s a process, I guess.

  • HeidiC says:

    I don’t think books count — I don’t exactly collect them, just buy too many of them. I’d say I collect sock yarn — I’m a sucker for hand-dyed or -painted yarn in shades of red — as well as fine arts letterpress broadsides, mostly poetry though I have a few prose ones. I have more than I’ve had time to frame or hang, but I can’t resist them. I’ve paved my office walls with them!I haven’t exactly been downsizing, so much as attempting to stop accumulating!

  • rosarita says:

    It seems like everything I like becomes a collection although in my very small house, not much can come in without something going out, especially when it comes to clothing. But silver jewelry, esp vintage, is my favorite thing to collect and hey, doesn’t take up that much space. I’ve been collecting jewelry since I was 8 and although I do give a lot away, actual purges have only happened a couple times and I regretted them immediately. I have a bunch of stuff I don’t wear and have many of those items photographed and ready to list on eBay or Poshmark or somewhere but haven’t done it; when I look at sold items, so much sterling gets sold for cheap and I’d just rather keep it and look at it. I collect scarves too, esp vintage.

    • Musette says:

      I think, if it gives you pleasure, even just to look at, you should keep it.  I have a couple of coffee and tea services that I LOVE (but rarely use) but on a cold Winter’s afternoon, in the bright sunshine of my south-facing kitchen, I absolutely find joy in washing and polishing them.  

      That sounds insane.  But it’s true!

       

      xoxoxo

  • Musette says:

    well, as you know, I was knee-deep in purging, pending a possible Fast Move Out.  Omg.  The sheer number of things I hadn’t even looked at in nearly a decade!  Books, clothes crammed in the back of the closet, cookware that I thrifted….. 

    Ridiculous.

    But I would still fill my sock drawer with cashmere.  

    xoxoxo

  • Dina C. says:

    I’m a fan of decluttering, and have been giving my household contents the eagle eye for several years now. Problem: I’m sentimental about paper stuff. Plus, one kiddo still lives at home with all her claptrap. I did a ruthless post-meno clothing purge and got rid of 60% this summer. I can totally relate to the joy of dropping off bags of charitable donations. I can always find more room for sterling silver jewelry, wool socks, clothes that are the perfect shade of red, fuchsia, and magenta, and theatre costumes.

  • Portia says:

    Hey March,
    I’m a serial hoarder.
    First it was books, then vinyl records, then fabrics (from all over the world, you have no idea how lavish my sewing room was), then CDs & DVDs, then tableware, then clothes.
    Now it’s perfume.
    After every craze I purge. Sell, gift, goodwill. I keep a few remnants that I found super important but the rest goes.
    Perfume is my only real out of control indulgence now.
    Every year I move on a bunch of bottles to homes where they’ll be properly loved.

    Sounds like you’re really enjoying the winding down of stuff.
    Portia xx

  • SpringPansy says:

    Ah, this is actually a topic of great importance to me. We moved a couple of years ago from Colorado to Seattle after 25 years / 3 sons raised in the Colorado house.  It was totally traumatic going through all that stuff (whose is all this? I would think every time I opened a drawer). 

    My goal in life now is to only keep things that are important to me but it’s really a constant struggle. I was just weeding through my clothes today and found a number of things I still like but that are just a bit too small in the waist now…so I’ve made a new donation pile.

    However, I can always find room for perfume.  And bracelets.  And quite a few scarves.  And a certain number of cookbooks. And like Tara C, chocolate. But that gets eaten and doesn’t hang out long. 😉

  • Filomena says:

    Besides  perfume, I have a lot of purses even though I have sold many of them through the years.  I have also sold lots of my jewelry and left only few things besides the pieces I wear every day.  I purge clothing every so often and have donated many bags of clothes (and purses and shoes) to Good Will.  Even though I only live in a condo, there are still many things I need to get rid of.  By the way, I never win anything either, not just on this give-aways, but also lottery tickets, raffles, etc., which is why most of the time I do not even bother to enter.

  • Kathleen says:

    Yes, I have recently been downsizing by donating clothes and many items from basement storage. We are thinking of moving to a less expensive house in near future and it’s easier to get rid of unneeded items now.

    i used to collect cookbooks, and loved reading them, pre-internet days. I’m still donating books. All recipes are so easy to find online now.

    • March says:

      That’s funny about cookbooks.  Initially I could not make the conversion to reading a recipe online, but over time it seems easier and easier.  I’ve parted with a lot of cookbooks and mostly have ones with sentimental value now.

  • Eldarwen22 says:

    I just went through everything in my bedroom and threw out 3 black garbage bags of stuff and donated 2 bags of stuff. It was horrible to do because it took me two days to do but things are clean and organized. Besides perfume, I collect Galileo thermometers, both pretty and functional. I just got back into collecting candles.

    • Musette says:

      I adore Galileo thermometers – only have one but I adore it!  When I thought I would have to move, I packed it – now, as soon as I get MY house to myself, it will come back out, just in time to tell me how frickin’ FREEZING it is! lol!

       

      xoxoxo

  • Tigs says:

    Books, of course, which seems so far to be the most popular answer of the day. It’s sort of unconscious collecting but my father once pointed out we had 14 jars of mustard in the fridge. (He counted.) 

  • Tara C says:

    Boots, socks, books, lipsticks, hoodie sweatshirts, tea & accessories, chocolate, and of course perfume. I currently have two trash bags full of high heels and other uncomfortable shoes sitting ready to go to Goodwill, remnants of a previous life. I am now only buying flat shoes, low-heeled boots, and comfy clothes. Every few months I take a look through my stuff and remove what I’m ready to part with. But I don’t think the overall volume is diminishing much, as I keep buying. When I die they can haul it away in a dump truck, I don’t care; I have no kids.

  • Gina T says:

    Books, perfume, art, fairy garden stuff, tea cups and china